Season Two: A New Version of Events, Chapter 1: At the Train Station
by lsockett
Summary: My new fan fiction story starts at the end of the episode in Season 2 when Jack and Elizabeth have just quarreled at the Hamilton Train Station on their way back to Hope Valley. What if things had turned out differently at that point? Read on if you want to explore this storyline . . . .
1. Chapter 1

Season 2: A Different Version of Events

Chapter 1: At the Train Station

[ _My new fan fiction story starts at the end of the episode in Season 2 when Jack and Elizabeth have just quarreled at the Hamilton Train Station on their way back to Hope Valley. Jack is angry, first, that Elizabeth continues to believe his brother, Tom, is a troublemaker and, second, that Elizabeth seems to want Jack to give up being a Mountie to join her father's shipping firm, which he has no interest in doing. Jack has refused Elizabeth's offer to sit with her in First Class, and announces instead that he is going to sit in coach since he has "a lot of thinking to do." Jack hands Elizabeth her luggage and walks off, leaving Elizabeth, astonished, standing alone in the middle of the train station._

 _What if things had turned out differently at that point – what if Elizabeth was so mad at being stood up that she concludes that Jack is not the right man for her? What if the couple lets their bruised egos push aside their true feelings for each other? Read on if you want to explore this storyline . . . .]_

Elizabeth, startled, watched Jack turn his back on her and walk determinedly towards the train, leaving her alone in the middle of the train station to fend for herself. Elizabeth felt her face grow hot with humiliation – no man had ever treated her like that before . . . no one. Elizabeth looked around, embarrassed, worried that others may have seen her being stood up. Elizabeth heard the conductor's announcement that the train was about to leave, but remained frozen in place, unable to move.

Luckily, a porter hurried up to Elizabeth and asked if she needed help with her luggage. At first Elizabeth couldn't answer, still flustered at Jack having left her so abruptly, but when she heard the "Final Boarding" announcement, she nodded to the porter and the two of them hurried to the train.

Elizabeth followed the porter as he led her towards the First Class car at the front of the train. The porter showed Elizabeth to her compartment and stored her luggage in the overhead shelf. Elizabeth sank into her seat and unbuttoned her coat, settling in for the long ride.

Elizabeth stared out the window as the train slowly pulled away from the station. Elizabeth couldn't stop thinking about how hurt she had felt when Jack had abandoned her at the train station. "That is not how a gentleman behaves to a lady!" Elizabeth mumbled under her breath. "Even if he was upset, he shouldn't have left me all alone like that!" Elizabeth harumphed.

Elizabeth usually appreciated that Jack treated her like a strong, independent woman, but in this situation, she felt that Jack had been deliberately unkind to her. "I do not deserve to be treated like that!" Elizabeth thought to herself, tears welling up in her eyes. As Elizabeth kept replaying the scene in her mind, a hard shell started to form around her heart. "Maybe my family is right – maybe Jack isn't right for me . . . ." Elizabeth let the nagging doubts about her and Jack's relationship seep into her consciousness.

Elizabeth recalled the events of the prior week which had led up to her and Jack's confrontation at the train station: Tom and her sister, Julie, wrecking her father's car; her father threatening to have Tom criminally charged; Tom's injuries and his stay at the hospital; Jack recruiting Tom's nurse, Faith, to help him prove that Julie had been driving the car before it crashed; Julie trying to run away with Tom once he was out of the hospital. "No wonder Jack feels there's a rift between the Thatcher and Thornton families!" Elizabeth thought to herself, folding her arms across her chest.

On the other hand, Elizabeth was dismayed that Jack hadn't even considered the job her father had offered Jack at his shipping company. "Jack dismissed the offer out-of-hand, without even discussing it with me! I guess being a Mountie is more important to Jack than anything else, even me." Elizabeth concluded dolefully. Elizabeth sighed – not only were her and Jack's backgrounds so different, it appeared that their visions of the future were diverging as well.

In the meanwhile, back in coach, Jack was starting to have second thoughts about leaving Elizabeth at the train station. Not that Jack wasn't still angry at Elizabeth . . . he was. Elizabeth had (again) insulted his brother and appeared to want to mold Jack into a version of her father - Jack wanted no part of that plan. "Elizabeth is used to getting her way about everything," Jack grumbled to himself. Jack had been realizing for a while that he didn't like the "Hamilton" side of Elizabeth, but he hadn't been able to admit that to himself or to Elizabeth. Now the question was whether there was another side of Elizabeth – and their relationship – that could be salvaged.

Jack sighed dejectedly and looked out the window at the passing landscape. Before the train had started, Jack had been too proud to check whether Elizabeth had made it into her compartment. Now Jack had to admit he was a little worried about whether Elizabeth was okay. "I should have at least walked her to her compartment," Jack chastised himself. Jack rose from his seat and walked through the coach compartment up to the First Class car.

Just then, a uniformed train employee stood up to block Jack's way. "Your ticket, sir," the man said. Jack showed the man his ticket. The train employee said haughtily, "I'm sorry, sir, you must have a First Class ticket to enter the First Class car." Jack tried to explain, "I just want to check on a young woman I was accompanying, Miss Elizabeth Thatcher." The train employee shook his head and repeated, "I'm sorry, sir. No one can enter the First Class compartment without a First Class ticket." Jack started to protest, but then thought of another idea.

Jack returned to his coach seat and pulled out a piece of paper, an envelope, and a pencil from his knapsack. Jack wrote a quick note to Elizabeth, sealed it in the envelope, put her name on the front of it, and then returned to the First Class car. The train employee rose, but before he could speak, Jack thrust the envelope into his hand. "Could you please give this to Miss Elizabeth Thatcher in First Class?" The train employee looked at Jack skeptically. Jack continued, "Please, I'm a Mountie. I don't have my uniform on today, but I need to make sure that Miss Thatcher is okay." The train employee looked at the envelope and then back at Jack. "Okay, I'll deliver this to her, but you need to return to your coach seat sir. I'll let you know her response." Jack nodded and returned to his seat.

A little while later, the train employee found Jack at his seat and handed him back the envelope. Jack saw that it hadn't been opened. Jack asked anxiously, "This envelope hasn't been opened . . . weren't you able to find Miss Thatcher?"

The train employee smirked. "Oh, I found Miss Thatcher, alright. She told me to tell you that she is perfectly fine, that you don't need to be checking up on her, and that she does not wish to receive any communications from you during this trip." The train conductor tapped his finger against his temple as he tried to remember the rest. "Oh yeah, and she said she has a lot of things to think about too, and like you, she is going to take the opportunity on this trip to do that. . . or something like that. She was talking so fast, I'm not sure I caught it all." The train employee chuckled.

Jack reddened in front of the train employee, embarrassed that his and Elizabeth's troubles were now fodder for this stranger. Jack nodded and said tersely, "Thank you for your trouble." The train employee wagged his finger at Jack and scolded, "Sounds to me like you got yourself some female trouble, young man. That's not a good thing to be sitting separately from your sweetheart – you shouldn't be leaving a pretty woman like that all by herself, you know." Jack stared at the train employee and replied curtly, "Thank you." Then Jack turned away from the employee and looked out the window. The train employee chortled as he walked away.

Jack looked at the unopened envelope in his hand and shook his head. This latest go-round with Elizabeth did not bode well. At least Jack knew Elizabeth was safely on the train. But Jack also knew that the distance between him and Elizabeth at this point was more than just a few train cars. Jack sighed and put the unopened envelope back in his knapsack.

From outside the train, one could see both Elizabeth and Jack staring out their respective windows, far apart from each other, yet both wondering whether they were meant to be together after all. Only time will tell . . .


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Duty Calls

Many hours later, the train arrived at the end of the line, at Buckeystown. At that point Jack perked up, thinking he could make amends with Elizabeth by securing a carriage for the both of them from Buckeystown to Hope Valley. As the train slowed to a stop, Jack gathered his belongings and quickly stood up, eager to exit the train.

Before Jack could step into the aisle, though, he felt a tug on his sleeve. "Young man, would you be so kind as to fetch my bag for me?" asked a matronly lady who had been sitting behind Jack the whole trip. Jack smiled politely and replied, "Of course." Jack reached into the overhead compartment and placed the lady's suitcase in the aisle by her seat. "Oh, sir, could you help me with mine too," asked a young mother with two squirmy children who had been sitting on a bench seat across from Jack. Jack smiled solicitously and started to pull down those bags as well.

As Jack was retrieving the young mother's luggage, he bent over and glanced out the window to see if he could spot Elizabeth amidst the hundreds of passengers debarking from the train. Jack thought he noticed a slim young woman with auburn hair walking alongside the coach car. As Jack leaned over to get a closer look, one of the mother's children started screaming, "Where's my dolly? I can't find her!" Startled, Jack jumped up and banged his head on the under ceiling of the luggage compartment. "Owww…" Jack said out loud, feeling the bump on his head.

"Look under the child's seat," one of the other passengers called out helpfully, as the child's screams got louder. Jack got down on his knees but couldn't see anything at first. Then Jack reached into his knapsack by his side and pulled out a flashlight (being the ever prepared Mountie) and bent over again – this time Jack saw a glint of white and swept his arm under the seat, managing to pull out a baby doll wearing a white nightgown. "Here she is, safe and sound," Jack said soothingly as he handed the doll back to the crying child.

Jack started to rise and return to the aisle, but the mother grabbed his sleeve. "Wait – Geraldine needs to say thank you first. Geraldine, please say thank you to the nice man who found your doll." The little girl shook her head "no" as she cradled her baby doll. "Geraldine, mind your manners!" cried the mother, who let go of Jack's sleeve in order to wag her finger at her daughter. "It's no problem, Ma'am, I'm happy to help, but I need to be on my way now," Jack explained, as he managed to back out of the mother's seating area and return to the aisle.

By this time, however, all the other passengers in the car were also lined up in the aisle, waiting to exit the train. Jack, stuck in the middle, looked up and down the aisle to see if one end of the line was moving quicker than the other, but to no avail. As Jack impatiently waited his turn to debark, he bent over to look out the window again.

This time Jack definitely could see Elizabeth – she was over by a line of carriages talking to the driver of the carriage at the front of the line. Next to her was a porter holding her luggage, and two other men waiting to board the same carriage.

This sight raised Jack's hopes. "If I can just get off this train," Jack thought, "I can run over and be the fourth passenger in the same carriage that Elizabeth is taking."

Jack managed to weave his way to the train's exit area and was about to step down the stairs when he heard a familiar voice calling to him. "Sir . . . sir . . . you're a constable, right?" Jack turned around to see the train employee who had refused to let him into the First Class car.

Jack replied cautiously, "Yes, I am. But I'm not on duty right now – I need to catch a carriage to Hope Valley where I'm stationed."

The train employee scoffed and grabbed Jack's arm. "Constable, you need to come with me. We have a situation in the back coach car – two men are fighting over a piece of luggage that each man claims is his. We need your help. You said you were a constable - I assume you were telling the truth!"

Jack shook his head in exasperation. "Okay, I'll be right there," Jack acquiesced. Jack took one last look out into the train platform to see Elizabeth being helped into the carriage by one of the other male passengers, who was smiling at her admiringly. Jack gritted his teeth and thought, "Okay, I'll just have to catch up with Elizabeth when I get back to Hope Valley." Jack turned and dutifully followed the train employee to the back coach car.

A few yards away, Elizabeth, seated in the carriage that was to take her to Hope Valley, looked out the side window, trying to find Jack in the crowd. "Maybe Jack got off at one of the previous stops on Mountie business," Elizabeth wondered to herself. "Or maybe he already caught a carriage back to Hope Valley and didn't wait for me . . . ." Elizabeth speculated, annoyed.

Elizabeth sighed - she had been hoping to share a carriage with Jack back to Hope Valley. Elizabeth had missed sitting with Jack on the train. Elizabeth worried she should not have so thoroughly rebuffed Jack's effort to contact her on the train; she ended up spending most of the train ride bored and lonely. "I guess Jack and I will have to figure out our relationship back at Hope Valley," Elizabeth thought to herself.

Elizabeth felt a jerk as the carriage started to move forward. Elizabeth leaned her head out the carriage window one last time to look back at the train platform. Failing to see Jack in the crowds, Elizabeth pulled her head back inside the carriage window to face her fellow travelers. Elizabeth smiled politely at the other male passengers in the carriage, who were eagerly waiting to talk to her.

As the carriage moved away from the train station, Elizabeth wondered once again whether she should be moving on as well. "Have I misread my calling in Hope Valley? Am I meant to be someplace else . . . with someone else?" Elizabeth thought to herself. Elizabeth was willing to follow her heart . . . if she only knew where her heart wanted to go.


End file.
